


In Just Seven Days (Seven Nights)

by MooseFeels



Series: flow morphia, slow [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drinking, First Meetings, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 05:36:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13675323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: The first few times Viktor sees Yuuri, and the first time he really meets him.(what a pity Yuuri won't remember)





	In Just Seven Days (Seven Nights)

It’s grey outside. It’s always grey outside, and not just because February in the city is rainy and tired. Viktor shrugs down the street with his coat collar pulled up high and he tries to be interested in anything. 

God knows, he tries. He goes to the library and checks out books. He goes to book clubs, or at least, he signs up for them. He goes to movies and he tries to follow the plot. Buys puzzles and solves them, plays chess in the park. He even works as a private tutor, a weekly appointment to fill his time. But the problem is, there have been so  _ many _ days, a devastation of them, and Viktor can’t remember the last time there was one he enjoyed. 

It’s grey outside. Viktor knows that it hasn’t  _ always _ been grey outside, but he can’t remember a time when it wasn’t.

He’s on his way to the bookstore, to pick up something he knows he’ll read twenty pages of and stop when he runs into someone. 

Not a little bit, full body. Full speed. Both of them going fast enough that Viktor finds himself knocked over and backward by a man.

“Oh,” Viktor says. “Are you--”

And then man looks up, and Viktor has a few thoughts, simultaneously. 

The first is that the man has been crying. His eyes look red, swollen. He has heavy tear-tracks down his round cheeks. They look cold against the February air. 

The second is that the man is beautiful. His dark hair is mussed against his forehead, just a little sweaty. His eyes are brown and so lovely. His mouth is pink and full, even if it is twisted downward into an expression of overwhelming sadness.

And the third thought is that Viktor is almost unspeakably hungry. 

The man looks at Viktor and he flushes a little. “I’m so sorry,” he says, his voice creaking. “I’m sorry.” He wipes his nose with the back of his sleeve and scrambles up, shoving his hands deep into his pockets.

VIktor gets up too, tries to catch his eyes. He’s shorter than Viktor, smaller through the shoulders, too. “Are you okay?” VIktor asks.

The stranger, he laughs, and he hustles on. 

This is the first time they meet.

* * *

 

Viktor is sitting in a cafe with a book, beside a window, the second time. He’s nursing a cup of hot water and trying to follow the opening pages of some airport paperback when he glances out the window and he sees a dogwalker, navigating six dogs, talking to them. His voice indistinct on the other side of the glass, but he sounds cheerful, friendly. And it’s him-- smiling and laughing, but undeniably him. Same dark, messy hair, same beautiful brown eyes. A lightness in his shoulders and spine, despite the weight of his large coat and scarf and hat. 

Viktor sits and watches him, enamored, as he slips by. 

He doesn’t realize he’s so thoroughly stopped paying attention to Yuri until he hears him snapping in his ear. 

“Old man,” he hisses. “What is the matter with you-- are you already gone demented?”

VIktor blinks and looks back over. 

“Yuri!” he says. “Already you are here. How goes the translation, hm?”

* * *

The third time, it’s very late at night.

It’s dark, pitch black in the way the hours after midnight and before sunrise are. The only light is the brown glow of sodium lamp overhead and the anemic leak of windowlight. The people out are either headed home from the clubs or headed into the clubs or shuffling to and from the most punitive of jobs. And then there’s Viktor.

Viktor’s out because he’s hungry. 

Viktor’s always hungry. It defines him. It’s all he is. Starvation animated on two legs, strolling through the city. 

He hangs back in a shadow, more or less invisible, and he watches people slip by. Always clustered in groups or on the phone. He needs someone alone, someone who won’t be missed for a stray forty five minutes. Just fast enough that Viktor can eat and slip away. 

It’s harder than it used to be-- harder now than it was even thirty years ago-- but in a city like this, at night, he can still have his meal easily enough. 

VIktor doesn’t expect to see him. He steps out from a bus stop to the sidewalk quickly, headphones in his ears. There’s a determined set to his mouth and an exhausted quality around his eyes and shoulders. He looks dead on his feet, a bag thrown over his shoulder, sleeve of something popping out of the opening. 

He looks different, how he always looks different. He looks the same, the way he always does. 

Viktor peels out from the shadow and tags along behind him, just far enough to look incidental, just close enough to keep close to him. 

Eventually, Viktor knows if he keeps following him, he will either be seen or he will eat, and something about both of those options is fundamentally unsatisfying to him. 

He wants something from him. He wants something  _ with _ him. 

Viktor tails him for a few blocks, keeping distance, staying inconspicuous, and eventually he ducks into an all-night cafe instead of continuing to follow him. He feels the hungry sensation of his teeth sharp in his mouth. 

He waits for dawn, and then he skulks home, unfed and confused.

* * *

 

Then, it is months before Viktor sees him again. Viktor is out with Chris, both of them clung to the side of a club’s alley exit, watching people straggle out.

“You need a new hobby, Viktor,” Chris purrs. A century and change in America and he still hangs onto his accent, thick and sibilant. “You are too old by far to be so melancholy. It is not charming on you.”

“Chris,” Viktor sighs. “Believe me, I don’t this because I think it may be charming.”

Chris tuts. "Then why do it at all darling?" He answers. 

Everything about Chris is like this. Charming and beautiful and sensual. It's part of why he's so successful hunting-- he is trusted to easily, so implicitly, with his curling blonde hair and bright green eyes and voice like something melting all too seductively into the ear. It makes him almost impossible for Viktor to bring his problems to, despite being the only person in this city who seems like he really understands. 

How lonely. How hungry. How empty. How grey. 

Viktor sighs. He wishes he'd picked up smoking when it was fashionable. He needs something to do with his hands. 

  
The back door opens and someone stumbles out, red faced and sweating and tipsy. They scramble, off balance, and Viktor steps forward to catch them, taking them by the shoulders, keeping them off the wet, hard concrete. Fall has already cycled back around, cold and clinging to the skin. 

The stranger’s breath hits the air in huge, heavy clouds and he turns and looks at Viktor and--

“It’s you,” he says. His breath smells off. His cheeks are flushed, his pupils are blown wide.

“It’s me,” Viktor answers. 

The man moves to stand up. His shirt is unbuttoned low, a tacky necktie pulled loose, still caught in the collar.

The man mumbles something. 

“Sorry?” Viktor asks.

“You’re so pretty,” he says, louder, clearer.

Chris snorts. 

“You’re very kind,” VIktor answers. “Also, drunk, I assume.”

The stranger laughs a little. “I’m a  _ little  _ drunk. A little. Not kind though.” He covers his hand with his mouth, belches. Shakes his head. “I’m not nice at  _ all _ .”

“Oh?” Viktor asks. Fascinated. Overwhelmed. He has to know more. He has to know everything. 

The man shakes his head. He rests himself forward, onto Viktor’s chest. His fingers beginning to tangle into Viktor’s lapels. He looks up at Viktor, all big brown eyes and plaintive expression. 

“Who are you?” He asks. “I know you followed me.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Chris’s expression turn horrendously, unfortunately, amused. 

“I wanted you to do it again,” he says. His finger draws lazy circles on Viktor’s chest. “Did you follow me here?”   
Viktor shakes his head. 

“I  _ looked _ for you,” he says, his voice plaintive and sad. “Why did you follow me?”

“Yes, Viktor,” Chris says. “Why  _ did  _ you follow him?”

The man looks at him with his brown eyes so bright and lovely and full of hope. “Viktor?” he asks. 

VIktor nods. They are so  _ very  _ close. “Viktor Nikiforov,” he says. 

“Katsuki Yuuri,” he answers. “Now  _ you _ say it.”

“Katsuki Yuuri,” Viktor says. 

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Longer.  _ Yuu _ -ri. It’s a song. No  _ Your-ee _ .” He wrinkles up his nose in displeasure. 

“Katsuki  _ Yuu _ -ri,” Viktor repeats. He pulls the syllable to the front of his mouth, a little sweeter. Less a growl. 

He smiles. He really smiles, beatific and shining. 

“Yes,” he says, his eyes slipping closed. “Viktor Nikiforov, why did you follow me?”

Viktor pulls his lip into his mouth, gnawing on it absently. The feeling is unsteady. Wonderfully exciting.

“You caught my eye,” he says. It’s true.

Katsuki Yuuri he sighs, his spine going straight and then collapsing loose and soft. 

“That’s not an  _ answer _ , Viktor,” he whines. He pulls in close to him. His breath, though strange, smells sweet. 

He’s so close. Viktor carefully reaches up to delicately brush his hair from his face, sweep his thumb over the delicate space under his eye.

"What if you answered one of my questions then?" Viktor asks. "And I'll answer yours."

"Okay," Yuuri says, nodding. He swallows, lets go a little breath. 

"Why were you crying, when we first met?" Viktor asks. "On the street."

His features crumple, becoming unbearably sad all of the sudden. "My dog died," he says. 

Viktor feels his stomach sink. "Oh," he says. "I'm so sorry."

He doesn't laugh, but he does make a sound like one, almost nervously as an afterthought. He shrugs. "It was stupid," he says. He laughs again, but not really. On the verge of tears again. 

"It wasn't," Viktor says. 

He smiles at Viktor warmly, softly. "Thank you," he says. His features go soft, almost dreamlike, for a moment, before he says, "What about you? Why were you following me, Viktor Nikiforov? A real answer this time?"

Viktor looks at this beautiful, strange man, who has pulled close to Viktor despite the copious reasons to keep away from him. Close enough that Viktor can bend over just a little and purr into his ear,  “What if I told you I thought you looked delicious? Is this an answer?”

It’s the way Yuuri looks at him fearlessly, when Viktor pulls back away, that strikes him. 

“Yes,” he says, absolutely. 

Viktor feels something in him rush and spin. 

The door opens again. 

“Yuuri?” Someone asks.

Yuuri turns away, animated and bright. “Coming Phichit!” He cries and disappears, back into the club.

Viktor stands in the alley,  _ starving. _

“Well, Vitya, I would tell you to get a hobby, but it seems like you found one of your own,” Chris says.

“Oh, shut up,” Viktor replies.


End file.
